The Haitian Bead Project by Terrie and Naomi

Friday afternoon, Debbie stopped at the school and asked if we could go meet with the women who work with The Haitian Bead Project - she had been trying to set up a time for us to do this and she had just found out that they were waiting for us, so we figured we had better get going!! Sometimes setting up a time to meet in Haiti becomes pretty tricky with not many people having access to phones and electricity. Gathering a group of people at a time when they don’t normally meet really depends on word of mouth and spreading the message, so when we heard they had gathered to meet us, we knew it was pretty special!

We first heard about the Haitian Bead Project through Debbie last year when we were starting to plan our family mission trip to Haiti. Debbie was friends with the founder of the organization. Dorina and her husband are missionaries from Fresno, California and along with their children, they live part of the year in Haiti and part of the year in Fresno. Dorina was seeing, first-hand, the need for work for the women of Pignon and the surrounding rural communities. She was able to begin this project with some very simple supplies yet creating some beautiful jewelry! She had seen beads made from colorful pieces of magazine pages and had also heard how these beads created into beautiful necklaces were beginning to make a sustainable income for women in Africa. She wanted to do something similar in Haiti. Because of her work as a missionary and travelling back and forth between California and Pignon, this gave her the perfect platform to begin this organization. The Haitian Bead Project was born and we are so excited to be working with them and to have had an opportunity to work with them! Dorina Gilmore’s (the U.S. coordinator) husband’s grandfather was the original missionary for the church, school and orphanage where the project is based. That has been the connection for her development of this ministry project in the U.S.. The school has all elementary grades and is a growing and thriving school in the middle of Pignon. The complex is a beautiful location and a little bit secluded with a beautiful courtyard area in the center. Back to our visit that day, we rushed to gather the duffle bag stuffed with donated supplies of flattened cardboard, Elmer’s glue, fishing line, scissors and seed beads. Debbie drove us to meet them, we were so excited! Conner came along too which was fun because he’s been very involved and has known and worked with us throughout the time we’ve been working with the project, so we were glad he was able to come as well! The “base-camp” for The Haitian Bead Project is this complex of elementary school, church and orphanage.

The women meet twice per week as a whole grouo for business meetings. Then, they make the jewelry at home! This, once we heard more about it, made complete sense! These women have young children at home to care for and if they were gone from home often to make the jewelry, it wouldn’t work for them as moms and caregivers. So, coming to meet twice per week for an hour or two and then making the jewelry at home really frees them up to create their work schedules around the needs of their families. What a great idea to do it this way! Having these twice per week meetings, though, allows the group to support one another, learn new techniques for making the jewelry, design new pieces, distribute supplies and offer support for all the women involved with the project.

When we arrived, we were greeted by a man who serves as local coordinator for the project. He took our heavy duffle bag filled with donations out of Debbie’s car and together we carried it to the classroom. As we entered the school-yard, the courtyard was quiet, clean and empty – kind of back off the busy street in downtown Pignon. We went to a second floor classroom and were shocked to walk into a classroom filled with colorful beaded jewelry spread over every school desk and table in the room with 30+ women lining the outside walls- the room was “packed full”.

It was OVERWHELMING and we couldn’t believe they were all there to meet US! They asked us if we could unload the donations first and the leaders immediately began distributing the cardboard amongst every woman in the room- WOW! We were really worried we wouldn’t have enough for each of the women to have a few pieces each, but there seemed to be just enough to share with everyone in the room! These throw-away cardboard boxes that we don’t think twice about provide a living wage to these women and their families and this allows them to create beautiful beads to make necklaces, bracelets, earrings and more! Something so insignificant to us can mean so much to someone else. They shared that the seed beads and other donations would be distributed fairly after we left or at a future meeting. We had been instructed not to buy in front of the women gathered- but look & admire their products. Debbie and the coordinator shared with us that the women need to experience the potential impact and resource that our interest and support for their project can have. Through our efforts in collecting supplies for their artwork and sharing their stories back in the U.S., doors can open for broadening their market base and hopefully create a sustainable project that can provide a living wage for each of the women involved with The Haitian Bead Project. The women were so kind and thankful that we would want to come and meet them in person and bring them supplies, but at the same time, very surprised by this as well. It’s still a new project and getting them to understand the outside connections to what they are doing is still a little harder to comprehend for them. The coordinator and Debbie did a great job of explaining some of this to them. The ins and outs of a new business in the states can be difficult to fully understand and the same thing was going on here! Just learning how to do this and make it viable for all the women is very necessary for the sustainability and the connections that are being made through meetings like this can help everyone in the long run! The women and coordinators wanted to pray with us before we left. During the prayer requests, the women did encourage us to develop potential markets for their jewelry and we promised them that we were. They were so thankful that we came and were so delighted that we would take the time to collect the supplies that we did and bring them all the way to Pignon just for them! It was such a great “full circle” experience we were able to have!

As we were leaving they were excited to look at the new supplies as well as understand our connection to the work they do and how we are wanting to partner with them to help each of them live a more comfortable life by fulfilling some of their goals whether that is to provide food for their families, build a home or even go to school in the future! The stories each of these women have and what has brought them to this project and what they’d like to do with the money they earn is just so simple and just for things we would take for granted in many cases! Just a joy to be able to meet them face to face know the connection we can have with them for years to come hopefully! As we were leaving, one of the women, Madame Moise wanted to give me a necklace and thanked me for coming to meet them and for our work with their project in the US! What a special and sweet gift! This necklace is so special to me and will always remind me of the day we were to meet and learn more about this wonderful project! We would love to share more about this project with you and would ask that you keep these women in your prayers along with Dorina and her family as they continue to create a sustaining and life-giving project to these women and their families in Pignon and the surrounding villages! What a gift it is to share in this project and what a gift that they were so honored and touched by the time we would take to help them and bringing supplies all the way from the US to help them continue their work! We hope to continue to support them by collecting supplies as well as selling their beautiful jewelry and share their story! Hopefully we will be able to return some day and visit them again! For more info, please go to www.haitianbeads.org You can also find The Haitian Bead Project on Facebook, check it out today!

The Dorcas Women's Group of Pignon by Terrie Jo Wold

Dorcas is a biblical character from Acts 9:36 who, “was devoted to good works and acts of charity”. The Dorcas Women of Pignon, Haiti, are an amazing group of women who live lives reflective of their biblical namesake by intentionally serving the people of Pignon. They represent at least 6 churches in the community and meet every Sunday afternoon at 4 pm in the home of their mentor, Lucy.

Many of the women are illiterate, so they memorize scripture and hymns to fill their hearts with God’s powerful words. They gather to study the Bible, sing hymns, pray, recite scripture, share reflections and inspiration on applying God’s words to their daily lives. It was so beautiful to be apart of their afternoon bible study and hear them recite scriptures in Creole and sing hymns with passion and love and spirit! The women of the group take turns visiting patients in the hospital every day of the week, serve a meal to the homeless once a month if they have the food and funds themselves to do this and help those in need. Some examples include replacing a roof or door on a home if needed and providing clothes, bedding, food or emotional support. These women probably all could very well be the ones in need and struggle everyday to provide for themselves and their families yet they have chosen to meet weekly and do what they can to help provide for those who have even less than they do - what an awesome thing to see and witness - God is working in and with this amazing group of women in all that they do!

The Sunday that we were there, we were fortunate enough to be able to go with Debbie Lucien to meet the women and join their bible study group. They were dressed for church- some even wearing hats; a few had bibles or song books. Lucy was encouraging the women to sign up for the Women’s Conference coming up at the Bible Camp this summer. She wanted them to sign up even if they couldn’t pay the registration fee so they would not miss this event. Kris and I gave a monetary donation to Lucy to use at her discretion for registration fees or the meal for the homeless. Debbie Lucien shared that this gift would fill them with hope and encouragement. One of the projects we worked on leading up to our mission trip to Haiti was to gather tshirts and make cloth diapers from them! We began working on this last October at Calvary's Mission Blitz! We had quite a few men and women helping us in the Coffee Shop cut tshirts and get them ready for sewing. In all and over the winter months, we were able to sew over 300 cloth diapers to bring with us to Haiti! I also made burp cloths, layettes and some baby blankets! All of these donations were brought to the Dorcas Women's group! It was sweet because when we arrived, some of them remembered meeting me on my last trip to Haiti in 2011. They shared that the cloth diapers I had brought then were given out over two years to new moms in need over the last two years and they were so thankful! They shared their gratitude and thankfulness and that they carefully distribute donations over time. They told us that the donations we brought this time would probably last them up to a year and be a huge help to the women and children of the community.

All of this work could not happen without a lot of help from people in our hometowns in the U.S. Naomi shared the story of a young girl, who is 10 years old who worked really hard along with her grandma and sewed over 75 cloth diapers! She wanted to help out as we were preparing to go to Haiti and this was a way she felt she could make a difference! Her Grandma and mom were so helpful in getting her involved and it was wonderful to see her smile and have her know she was really making a difference in the lives of others!! Thanks so much Kayla, Sharon and Shoni!!! We shared this story with the women that day and they offered to keep Kayla in their prayers that she would continue to be involved in her church and continue to help others in any way that she can both here at home and in Haiti! The women loved the story!!! We felt blessed to have this time with them and we hope to meet them again soon! Keep them in your prayers and continue to do what you can to help those in need that live near you - find what your gifts are and use them in a way that will serve and help others! That's in turn, going to be a wonderful gift to yourself as well knowing that you have blessed those with your gifts!

Dadelie - By Terrie Wold

Dadelie by Terrie Wold I sponsor Dadelie Brillant a 6 yo first grader at College de la Grace, Pignon, Haiti. She is such a bright, fun, energetic young girl that I am so very proud of. In 2011 I was able to meet Dadelie and her parents which was great! This year I got to go to their home and see where Dadelie lives. Her father’s name is Harry and he used to be a well known singer that traveled around the country performing in a group. When he became a Christian, he married Dadelie’s mom as a sign of commitment to the family and his new faith. Harry is a worship leader at Jerusalem Baptist Church, he also works at a rural school and does multiple jobs to support the family. He was surprised to hear that I retired- why would anyone quite a job if they actually had one? The Brillant family has 3 daughters- oldest is 13 yo, Fasemel who sings in choir at church & is a friend of Lydia Lucien- she looks just like her mom. She attends secondary school at College de la Grace. Dadelie’s mom is a teacher’s aide at the school for the past 9 years- works with pre-school children.

They share that Dadelie has been asking about me every day & very excited that I was coming to see her. She stood up and sang a song for me with good pitch & clear diction- her voice got stronger & stronger as she sang- it was AWESOME!! They shared they pray for me every day- pretty humbling!!! The family lives in a cement block home a few blocks from the church. The walls are stuccoed inside & out and painted very nicely-appears to be three rooms- living room with wooden table and chairs pushed up against a wall- we sat on plastic lawn chairs to visit. There was a curtain with bed behind it that I assume her parents sleep in. Dadelie and her mom showed me where she sleeps which is a large double bed with wooden headboard & footboard- the 3 girls share this bed. Dadelie had the fleece blanket I made her in 2011 spread out over the bed- it was still in good shape which was nice to see. Harry shared that the goat I gave them in 2011 was male- they sold it and bought a female goat that was pregnant- the baby that was born was butchered and eaten for the big family celebration of Dadelie graduating from Kindergarten last year. The goat had twins and they wanted to feed me one of the goats when I arrived as a celebration. I was touched and humbled sharing that they needed to eat the goat themselves- I pray that I did not offend them! They asked me for prayers that the goat would continue to have babies. Debbie shared that I wanted to learn Creole and she asked Dadelie if she could teach me some words. Dadelie was willing to try. We got mixed up the next morning at school when Debbie came to take the family to meet Kervensky’s family Dadelie was ready to start teaching me. I apologized to Dadelie and promised we would connect the next day- Deme- tomorrow. At Kris’s suggestion I made a list of words or phrases for her to teach me- starting with numbers. When she came to teach me she took it so seriously- often taking the paper and pen to write the creole letter or word for my understanding- she slowly formed the letters and words with her mouth for my understanding- so very cute!!!!

On Sunday afternoon she asked her dad to bring her to the school to see me. She was dressed in a beautiful flowered dress with sash & stayed for over an hour- it was wonderful!!!! We shared more teaching of Creole words, Conner taught her how to play the solitaire matching game & spot it game. We tried a puzzle for a short time but it is 3-D and very difficult.

Both Conner and Dadelie colored a picture and signed their name on the back- we asked Conner to keep both pictures.

She asked for Naomi to share a picture which was fun- Naomi picked out a couple of pics for her and wrote on the back. Very Special!!! I had to leave when Debbie came to take us to meet with the Dorcas Women. My goal is to learn more Creole so I can have a conversation with Dadelie. I also plan to make a photo book of pictures Naomi took of her for her to have. Sponsorship is such a gift and blessing for both student and sponsor. To learn more about sponsorship through Hosean International Ministries and Caleb and Debbie Lucien, please feel free to contact us at any time, we'd love to share more about this with you! Also, here is a link to their website and a link to sponsor a student is on the site......www.hosean.org

Haitian Roads and our travels to Pignon

The roads in Haiti are mostly dirt and gravel. There are some paved roads in towns and villages, but primarily you will find very rough roads that take you just about through anything including some pretty good sized rivers! We had quite an adventure making our way out of Port au Prince and North towards Pignon.

These very colorful buses/trucks are seen everywhere in Haiti and are called Tap Taps......they are like the local version of a city bus. People and often times large loads of a variety of things including chickens and goats are transported all over in these. Usually you will see people on top, hanging off the back and crammed inside in order to get a ride somewhere! Conner tried counting Tap Taps as we were driving out of Port au Prince, but where he got to 50, he gave up! They were really fun to see because of all the bright colors and creative paintings from top to bottom!

The housing shown here is just a few miles outside of Port au Prince and has recently been built in order to begin to provide housing for those who lost their homes in the earthquake. These apartment buildings are in high demand and the lines of people outside are hoping they might be able to get on the list to be placed in an apartment. There are still well over 200,000 people living in tent cities around Port au Prince and have been in these tent cities since the earthquake in 2010! My mom's last trip to Haiti was in 2011 and she felt very positive about the progress that has been made in this city and she didn't see nearly as many tent cities as she has in the past, so she felt very good about our drive through the capital. The need for housing in still a high priority, but is also a huge challenge when the poverty levels are so extreme. So, these apartment buildings were a very positive sign of a step in the right direction for earthquake recovery. Haiti is in the process of paving National Highway #3 which will be the only paved highway running North and South from Port au Prince to the northern coastal city of Cap Haitian. The paved part of the highway has now extended to the city of Hinche which is about 1/2 an hour South of Pignon. So, we were pretty lucky to have paved roads for the majority of our trip! The highway has been a work in process especially since the major earthquake that struck Port au Prince in 2010. Having a paved road has really been a blessing! The mountains of Haiti begin to rise shortly after leaving Port au Prince and are just beautiful! The roads have been cut into these mountains and have many winding turns and steep areas with a grade that probably wouldn't meet any code in our country, but they have been able to have a paved road and that's a great start! I really had no idea of the beauty I would see while driving to Pignon.....Mountains and Mountains and beauty everywhere we looked! Along with the beauty was a great deal of poverty and poor conditions. Many people live right alongside the highway (I mean...right alongside!) Homes are often made out of mud and branches or if you are able to afford it, cement block. Roofs are usually tin or sometimes just a tarp. This was very eye opening for the boys to see as we were driving. People walk right along the sides of the highway as well to get from town to town and from place to place. Women carry large amounts of water, food, wood either on their heads or strapped to their backs. Shoes are usually flimsy flip flops if they have shoes at all. That was heartbreaking to see as we were out in the middle of nowhere driving through the mountains and we would see people walking and walking and walking. Definitely a different way of life than we are used to. It makes you feel so blessed for those things we just take for granted such as running water in our homes, highways that are maintained, and bridges to go over rivers instead of having to navigate through them! Once we got to Hinche, we were pretty exhausted! The boys had fallen asleep and and our drive, which was only about 45 miles or so had taken us 2 1/2 hours.

Now, the fun was going to begin. Our paved highway was now at its end. We would continue on for the last half an hour on a very roughed in road that would take us to Pignon. They are beginning to cut in a road and level out a road that will be paved eventually, but for now, it's just dirt. Our dirt roads here in the US are still maintained pretty well and would be the envy of people in Haiti!! The rough road was quite adventurous, we were really shocked our luggage made it strapped down on top of the van! We drove through large ruts, around deep holes and through rivers

- it was a pretty crazy drive and this....was the National Highway!

We finally arrived in Pignon and had made it to College de la Grace which would be our home for the next 10 days!

Getting to Haiti - an adventure in itself!!

Oh....the luggage - all the luggage!! Kristina, Mom, Mark, the boys and I all left from the Fargo airport on Sunday morning, June 2nd. We were checking 18 50 pound suitcases filled to the brim with donations and supplies for our mission trip plus we each had a good-sized carry-on as well, so we were loaded down with bags! We ended up having trouble right off the bat with checking in our bags and wound up having to pay "a bit" more than we had anticipated and almost missed our flight! We tried to get through security as fast as we could and some of the tools Mark had packed for the networking job he would be working on didn't "quite" meet guidelines.......so, we were slowed down again, but got it figured out in the end by checking mom's carry-on through with all the extra tools. But, mom didn't have her clothes/toiletries, etc. for our overnight in Ft. Lauderdale....But, we bought her a cute tshirt in the Chicago airport and she was set for PJ's! We made it to Ft. Lauderdale and headed for the hotel (luckily without the 18 checked suitcases as those were checked straight through to Port au Prince!) We gave the cab driver the hotel address and he didn't have any idea where that was or could even think of a hotel in that area........possibly our first indication that the hotel wasn't going to be the greatest place we've ever stayed in! We pulled up and checked in and.......it was pretty sketchy, so luckily we weren't there for too terribly long! We had to be up bright and early to head back to the airport for our early morning flight to Haiti! Once we arrived back at the airport, we were met by Caleb Lucien and his daughter, Charisa! Caleb and his wife Debbie would be our hosts in Pignon, Haiti and Charisa had been at the University of Florida in Tallahassee for her college orientation weekend! We were very excited to be able to travel with them to Haiti and have someone we knew with us in the airport and to help us with our major luggage and transportation out of Port au Prince to Pignon where we would be staying for our time in country.

Caleb had gotten a driver with a van to take all of us back to Pignon. So, the driver began loading all of our bags into the back of the van and on top of the van so we could begin our journey! It was pretty hot and definitely a bustling big city! The boys were pretty excited, yet a little anxious and nervous for what was to come. Fortunately, they had met Caleb before and so it was great to be with a familiar face and to have Charissa with us too!

We were off and ready to leave the airport. First stop was the Servotel Hotel for a quick breakfast. The hotel was close to the airport and set back off the main road a bit with armed guards. The hotel was quite modern and seemed to cater to foreigners. The restaurant was very nice and looked out over a pool! We were pretty surprised and really weren't expecting to see such a nice place in Haiti! The food was delicious and it was nice to sit down to a great meal and great conversation before hitting the bumpy, winding, mountainous road towards Pignon.

Reflections

Well, as some of you may have realized by now, we are already home and in re-entry mode! Writing the blog while we were in Haiti didn't work out quite as well as I had hoped partially because we didn't have access to the Internet or even power all the time, so getting things up on the blog became more difficult than I had anticipated. Plus, getting photos updated with the blog entries would have been challenging too with slow internet speeds. So, here we are.....back home again and reflecting on our time in Haiti as a family. We feel so very blessed by our experiences and by the people who helped to make this trip happen and for all those we met! We look forward to sharing more about the sites and sounds of Haiti in our coming posts. We've decided to post by topic instead of going back through each of our days in country, so you will get to read about a variety of things and see accompanying pictures!

Friday morning already!!!

Wow, how time flies yet at the same time seems to stand still!! We feel like we've been here for way longer than 4 days and that is definitely in a GOOD WAY!! What a beautiful place! We are way up in the mountains and surrounded by mountains which is beautiful scenery! Everything is very lush and the trees are filled with fruit! Yhe boys learned almost as soon as we got here how to throw rocks at the ripe mangoes in the trees to knock them down for an afternoon snack!! They are having lots of fun with that!! They also got some help from a guy who is staying next to us with a mission group fromNew Jersey how to get a coconut out of a tree, get it chopped open with a machete and then drink the milk inside ( which seems more like water to me!!). We all got to tasted it which was a lot of fun!!! watching our friend, Jake, get the coconut was just as fun!!! we have spent time with Dadelie and Kervensky as well as a newly sponsored girl named Bianca who is now sponsored by friends of ours in Wisconsin!!! Mark and Ethan are really staying VERY BUSY working on the wireless network and wiring up the computer lab, but things are going really well and his guesstimates in amount of cabling is working out just about right too, hooray!! More posts soon!!!!! Thanks to you all for your love and support and prayers!!